Checking up on Kingsdown

 

By a series of curious events, I'm no longer representative of Kingsdown, having moved a couple of miles up the coast. The name Walmerer doesn't ring true, however, so until I get complaints I'll keep going, making sure that I make occasional covert forays into the parish to check up on the place.
The domain name will, however, be open to sensible offers (I'm thinking Facebook-value here).

The place remains much as I left it, with a good recurrence of butterflies along Otty Bottom. A few chalkhill blues posed on scabious, and a couple of small blues repeated their cousins' emergence in the usual sites.

Less expected was a pristine singleton, far from any apparent kidney vetch.

On top o't'hill the allotment has had a catastrophic year, slugs devouring anything planted or sown in the damp conditions. It's a real haven for wildlife with only the potatoes resisting the pests. The only thing growing up the runner bean stakes was bristly bloody ox-tongue!

Under the refugia lurk the usual suspects..... Norbert the lizard and one of the adult slow worms that have brought up a family of slivers.

The regular reader may recall that the allotment produced a few (rare) round-leaved fluellens. I left them to seed of course, and now my seed bed is a matted mass of the stuff - probaby more here than anywhere else in the country I'd guess.

A botanical trip to the rifle range was disturbed by a bit of excitement.....
a prawn catcher had got stranded by the rising tide and was calling for help.

The first of a series of calls to the coastguard scrambled the smaller lifeboat - calm and in control.

After an assessment of the situation, they edged towards the old walls and plucked Jamie from danger.
The tide rose another 4 feet or so in an hour.